


Yearning

by Ziel



Category: Worm - Wildbow
Genre: Amnesia, Body Horror, Bugs & Insects, Cannibalism, Gen, Horror, Lovecraftian, Mutilation, Occult
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-03-08
Updated: 2016-03-07
Packaged: 2018-05-25 11:16:11
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 3
Words: 18,471
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6192892
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ziel/pseuds/Ziel
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There's a vintage thirst returning. </p><p>After a visit to Annette's grave on the anniversary of her death goes badly awry, Taylor begins remembering things from childhood. Things that never happened. Things her mother did. Doors are opening, Taylor. Taylor's getting hungry. Very, very hungry. </p><p>And the insects are singing to her.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. 1-1

_1-1_

_Mom set the knife down on a paper towel. The gash in her hand pulsed, blood filling her cupped palm, enough that I thought it'd spill over, but it didn't._

_"Ready?" she said._

_"A-almost."_

_I swallowed. It was just blood._

_And that was a stupid thought. Blood was a lot more than just the red stuff inside you._

_I shifted, fidgeting on the spot. We were both kneeling on the floor, and Mom had pushed the area rug aside, leaving us on the bare boards. It was pretty uncomfortable. Why we couldn't have used the cushy armchair in the corner, I didn't know._

_But…_

_"If we do this really fast, can we finish reading_ Redwall _?"_

 _Mom laughed. "I think we can manage that. Tell you what, Taylor, if we finish up right now, we'll finish the book,_ and _I'll let you read to me before your father gets home."_

_My jaw dropped. "Whoa."_

_I stared at her hand for a long moment. Her blood was so dark it looked almost black. The surface rippled. Like something was moving below the surface. Like_ it _was moving._

_It scared me. Moms shouldn't be able to bleed._

_"Are you okay?" Mom said gently. "I know this is a little strange."_

_I met her eyes. Mom was still smiling, totally calm._

_But that settled it. Mom would never hurt me. That was a fact._

_I scooted in and cupped my hands under hers in case anything spilled._

_"Good girl," Mom murmured. "One more thing though."_

_"Yeah?"_

_"This needs to be our little secret, okay?"_

_I nodded without hesitation._

_She lifted her hand to my lips. The blood spilled out._

_I drank._

_I drank and-_

The bus jumped, and I jerked, nearly falling out of my seat. The tubby man sitting beside me made an angry noise as my elbow struck his arm, but I barely noticed. The bus thudded up and down again as it hit another pothole. The motion had woken me.

I turned in my seat to peer out the window, taking in the upper-half of Sycamore Street. My watch read 12:07, but it could have been any half-past six and I wouldn't have known better. The world outside was gray; streets and sidewalks rimed with salt and slushy snow blending indistinguishably with the cloud-choked sky above. The sunlight that did manage to make it through only highlighted how drab and gray Brockton Bay looked in the winter.

I sighed, my breath fogging the window, and squinted to read the street sign as we passed it. Alberta Road.

Not long now.

I continued facing out the window, but stopped paying much attention. The dream was fading, but I remembered… something. Something about Mom. I'd been a kid and we'd been… doing something with knives?

 _Weird_. Mom hadn't ever been much of a cook. But the finer points were already gone, and my interest in what I'd dreamt was rapidly being replaced with a flush of embarrassment. I'd fallen asleep on the bus like some kind of hobo. And - I glanced to the side - the man in the seat next to me glared. I found it hard to care about that. He wasn't exactly sparing the elbow to begin with.

The bus hit yet another pothole, bouncing everyone up and down and lurching my stomach into a queasy flip. My knee was beginning to throb again, growing a little more painful with every bump and jump of the bus. The medical brace around it kept my knee bent so I couldn't put any weight on it, with the side effect that if I didn't watch it, I'd slam knee-first into the seat in front of me whenever the bus braked too hard. Just sitting was an ordeal; I was constantly off-balance, holding my leg in the position that hurt least.

 _Stupid painkillers_. Pills didn't do much for me, but Dad had insisted. I could take pain. What I couldn't handle was the haze at the edge of my thoughts. The narcotic fuzz that made me feel like my eyes were two sizes too big, that the world was constantly spinning just a little. The bus was too warm; the heater on full-blast, and a dozen passengers building the interior to a sickly heat. It added to the haze, making me feel dull and sleepy.

And I couldn't fall asleep again. I wouldn't think of it in school, not when someone would take it as an invitation to stick something in my hair or steal my things. On the bus? It would be insane. Falling asleep for as long as I had scared me a little. There were too many creeps out there.

The nausea kept me awake for the rest of the ride. Every time I felt myself drifting off, I'd concentrate on how my stomach was empty, all writhing, churning bile, the acid taste of vomit still faint in the back of my mouth. It kept the drowsiness at bay, if barely.

I still nearly missed my stop, nodding off for a moment and only waking when a departing passenger stepped on my foot. I grabbed my crutches, bag and flowers and limped toward the door. The aisle was narrow to begin with, and the other passengers not too keen on moving out of the way. I had to hop awkwardly along on one foot, balancing my bag and crutches on my arm, and supporting myself against the seats with my free hand. By the time I left the bus, my face was burning, and not from exertion.

_If Emma could have seen me…_

The wind outside cut through my coat in seconds, but I welcomed it, breathing deeply, clearing my head after the stuffy heat of the bus. I even managed to stretch, taking care not to bend my leg, but it got my blood flowing again.

The bus had let me off just outside the entrance to Brockton Memorial Cemetery. The iron gates were propped open to let in traffic, though no one was driving through today. Not with three inches of snow on the ground and more to come.

I slipped in through the gate without a backward glance. A small weight seemed to fall from my shoulders as I entered. The cemetery was… it was safer, somehow. No one here knew me or cared who I was. Beyond that, it was totally deserted.

My steps were a little lighter as I crossed the intersection just inside the gates. The cemetery was big, a couple miles on each side, but I knew where I was going. Dad had gotten lost during last year's visit, and I'd taken care to memorize the map afterward. There were paths, paved roads marked with colored dotted lines to lead the way.

Istepped onto the green dotted path and set off, flowers stuffed into my bag to protect them. The path was wet with melted snow, and rock salt crunched underfoot. It made positioning my crutches a little difficult, but they were capped with tough rubber feet, and gripped the ground better than I expected. They still felt awkward and unfamiliar in my hands, but I quickly fell into a rhythm as I climbed the path. Step, hop. Step, hop. Step, hop…

The path I was on circled around a small manmade lake before ascending a series of low hills. My destination was near the top, on the hillside overlooking the city. The walk shouldn't take more than a half hour.

The wind intensified as I hobbled along, strong enough to pull my hair out its bun to whip around my face. I tucked it under my hat best I could and soldiered on. It wasn't much further. I could make it.

I passed hundreds, probably thousands of graves on the way up. Only the tallest headstones stood out over the snow. Many more, little more than stone slabs, would be buried until spring. What was left over looked like a bizarre stone forest of crosses, busts, statues, obelisks, and other, more elaborate constructions that I couldn't name, peppered here and there with the solid forms of mausoleums.

The green path passed between two hills, intersecting with the yellow path. A stone angel loomed over the crossroads, its features softened by time and weather. I paused a moment, leaning on my crutches and looking back at the angel. Between the column it stood on and its outstretched wings, the gravestone had to be thirty feet tall. Someone had spent a lot of money there.

It was a hollow gesture. I understood why they had done it, but it was hollow. No statue, no monument could accurately depict the magnitude of what grief felt like. Part of me, the caustic part I'd gotten from Mom, would have called that melodramatic, but it was how I felt all the same.

I headed onward.

The path felt a lot longer on foot. People came here during nicer weather to walk and bike the trails, but there was none of that in the winter. I was alone, limping a little now as my right knee slowly filled up with fire. I wasn't using it, but just moving was irritating it, the constant up-and-down of crutching along jarring enough that not even my brace could help.

"Just a little more."

I forced myself around a bend in the road. It would curl around the hill twice before passing the grave on the far side. If I'd been in good health, it might have been faster to just climb directly up the hill.

 _If I'd been in good health._ I couldn't stop myself from grimacing at the thought. If I'd been a lot of things, this trip would have been a lot different. I could have been here with Dad. We could have come as a family.

I could lay the blame for that at Emma's feet. No reason things were going to change once I went back to school. Sophia was gone, but what did that matter in the long run? Emma would just replace her.

As I came fully round the bend, something forced me out of the dark train of thought I was on. There were three cars and a truck parked on the side of the road. I crutched past them, peering down the hill as I went.

An area the size of a football field had been plowed, speckled with green where grass poked through the remaining carpet of snow. A small group of people were bustling around. Two were setting up folding chairs in long rows. Another was picking up loose sticks and debris from the area. Off to one side, a trio was putting together the metal supports for a huge canopy. Others were standing back, breaths misting the air as they talked.

Someone was going to have a massive funeral. It was only as I passed the lead car that it all came rushing back. The logo emblazoned on the car's door read simply, "PRT."

A cape funeral.

I stared up the road, pain temporarily forgotten at the sight before me. Just past another mausoleum, the blacktop disappeared under a carpet of snow, indistinguishable from the frozen grass around it. A thick drift of snow as tall as I was sat on the side of the road where the plow had pushed it, and apparently, stopped.

I groaned, sagging against the crutches. "Unbelievable."

The hill must have been too steep for the cemetery to risk it, but they couldn't have gone just a _little_ further? Especially with the funeral coming up so soon. Typical Brockton Bay.

" _Fine_."

 _No sense going home when you're this close._ But that was a lie. I wasn't turning around because they weren't going to take this from me.

I waded into the unplowed section. Every step was harder now; digging the crutches into the snow, making sure they stayed stable, and then throwing myself forward, trying to clear as much distance in one shot as I could. I'd balance on my good foot, jerk the crutches out and repeat the process.

By the time I made it around the next bend in the hill, my shoulders were burning and my knee felt like someone was hammering nails into it. The pain wasn't enough distraction to drive out the cold, and I wasn't moving fast enough to stay warm. It was creeping in, amplified by the frozen earth all around me. Twenty feet round the bend, I started shivering, my teeth chattering uncontrollably. Powder was sifting into my boots, my socks growing first damp, and then chilly; my steps slowing to a crawl as I dragged myself through the snow.

The next turn in the path brought the wind. There were no other hills or trees in the way on this part of the path to blunt it, and it came in with teeth. It hit me mid-hop, balanced precariously on my crutches, and I started tipping over backwards before my frantic flailing carried me forward. I stopped, bowing my head, waiting for it to subside. When a minute passed without the wind stopping, I started forward again, my steps sliding a little now as I was buffeted back and forth.

Just a little more. Mom's grave was just up the hill. Just around the next bend. Almost there.

I had to do this. There was no one else who could. Mom hadn't had any living family that I'd ever heard of, and not even her closest friends had stuck around after the funeral. And Dad… I hadn't told Dad where I was going. It was better if he didn't know. Coming out here would only upset him, and he was already under a lot of stress dealing with my problems.

The burst of anger from that thought lasted just long enough to get me through a drift heaped nearly knee-high by the wind. The pain in my leg was spreading in dull, ugly waves, my hops growing faster and faster as I tried to just get the walk over and be done. Every step still shot a bolt of pain from my knee to my spine, each one lingering, building up bit by bit to become something mind-numbing.

I stopped at one point, leaning against a headstone capped with a bust, trying to massage some feeling back into my leg. It might have worked if I wasn't so cold that I couldn't feel anything but the pain. And if my hands weren't little more than two pieces of ice wrapped in gloves.

"J-just a l-l-lit-tle. M-m-more."

I wasn't going to let them take this from me. I was going to honor Mom's memory come hell or high water.

The final curve arched up sharply, the slope steep enough that I could finally admit why the cemetery hadn't bothered with it. But I was so close. Mom's grave was at the top of the hill. It was- it- it-

My gaze swept up the path and I stopped where I stood. An unbroken field of white greeted me, bringing with it a realization I should have had before I left home. Mom's grave was a simple stone slab, barely taller the grass around it, no different from a thousand other headstones in the cemetery. And like those thousand headstones, Mom's was buried under three inches of snow.

It was impossible to find.

I couldn't find her grave even if I did make it up that far. And it was far. Practically miles, with my knee like this.

I'd lost.

In spite of myself, I took a step up the hill. My knee gave a furious throb of protest, and I stopped, supporting myself on the crutches.

There was no sense in going up there. Between the weather and my health, it might actually be suicide.

Mom wouldn't want this.

I took another step. This was stupid. So, so stupid.

Another step. And another.

If I'd had a good knee, I could have found it. I could climb the hill, dig in the snow, find the grave, and _make it right_.

But they'd taken that from me. First Emma, then Sophia. They'd done it. Sophia's last _fucking_ hurrah had taken Mom's memory and tainted it. It was worse than what they'd done to her flute. Worse because they'd reached into my life and fucked up something that was _ours_ \- something that _meant something_. Something that-

I slung my crutches forward and hurled myself into the next step.

My foot came down on ice. And suddenly, I was pitching to the side, my left crutch sliding as it too hit ice. I tried to hold on, tried to stay upright, but the crutch jagged, digging into my armpit, my arm twisting painfully in its socket. I toppled, crutches spinningaway as I threw my hands out in one last-ditch attempt to break my fall.

My hands hit first, but any pain I felt there was nothing, eclipsed in a heartbeat as my knee struck the icy tarmac.

The world went white.

_Doors were opening. Old doors. Doors long forgotten. Doors locked and scabbed over with memory._

_Doors were opening._

_The door at the back of the house – the door to Mom's room was opening. I stared down the hall at it. A beam of sunlight shone from the window inside, lighting the hallway. For an instant, the square of light flickered as someone moved in front of it, but I saw no one._

_-_ this'll be our little secret _-_

_I walked, and my steps were short. Child's steps. I approached, and the door swung wide._

_The door swung wide and-_

_…_

Cold.

Cold deep enough to blot out everything. Every breath hurt. It was only the pain that gave me boundary, showed me where my body began and the cold ended.

 _"Taylor_."

Something brushed my face, and I moved without thought. My hand rose up to knock the thing away and I jolted, my eyes opening wide as something crunched wetly against my cheek.

The world was split in two, half gray, and half white. I blinked, my eyes thick with tears, and the scene sharpened. The sky was on my right, a single mass of gray clouds stretching to the horizon. I blinked again, slowly realizing that the white I was seeing was snow.

My face was half-buried, the left lens of my glasses opaque, my cheek numb. A thin trickle of melted snow slid past my lips where my breath had melted the snow. I rolled over and sat up, wiping globs of sleet away from my face with clumsy hands.

Reality reasserted itself once I was up, memories returning. Where, how, why. The pain streaking through my veins diversified, becoming a sickly mix as I catalogued my injuries. My knee was thunderous, kept from being agonizing only by my being too cold to feel it. The brace had twisted to one side, and I fixed it. The act relieved a tiny fraction of the pain in my knee, only to awaken new pangs in my hands.

I'd ripped open the palms of both gloves when I fell, and the insides were soaked. I poked at the holes and hissed as the raw, scraped skin stung. The dampness inside my gloves was more than just snowmelt.

Something fell into my lap as I examined my hands. I picked it up.

 _-isn't it pretty, taylor?_ -

A dead moth, one wing bent, its furry body limp. Its wings were brilliant with black, red, gray, all twisting together like a Rorschach. Something heavy sank in my stomach at the sight of it. It had woken me, and I'd accidentally crushed it.

"Sorry."

_-don't cry, darling. there are plenty-_

I put it aside and pushed snow over it. It just seemed… appropriate for the location.

One crutch sat near enough for me to stretch and grab it. The other was… I looked around, twisting in the snow to search. It had fallen farther away, too far to reach. My bag was closer, and the flowers sat in the snow where they'd fallen from it. I used my crutch to tug them to me.

I rose slowly, bracing against my remaining crutch, climbing up it until I was fully vertical. It took an awkward bit of balancing to stump close enough to grab the second crutch, but I managed. I probably wouldn't be able to get home without it, and I didn't want to explain to Dad where and how I'd lost it.

But that was all later.

No. What mattered now was the grave.

I stared up the slope one last time, searching in vain for some glimpse, some clue to where her grave was. The wind howled, blowing a mist of snow across the hillside.

One final insult.

I pulled the bouquet out of my bag. One of the lilies was bent, and the daffodils were missing half their petals. It didn't matter anymore.

I turned, looking out over the edge of the hill. The view ran for miles; a sea of snow-covered rooftops and gray buildings all the way to the edge of sight, where they broke up for Downtown's skyscrapers.

But I couldn't see much of it at the moment. My eyes were burning too badly.

The gale picked up, carrying away a few more daffodil petals with it. It was cold, but it seemed distant now. Only the sting where it froze my damp cheeks felt real.

Without thought, I hurled the bouquet out into the wind. The flowers spun wildly, petals and loose blossoms scattering in their wake. They struck the ground, tumbled, and then finally came to a stop at the bottom of the hill, a tiny bundle of color slowly sinking into the snow.

How I made it back to the bus, I didn't know. There was no memory of it. I simply _was_ on the bus.

Things were too bright, too warm, too _everything_.

The trip passed like a dream. I stared out the window, not seeing anything we passed.

All the while, my thoughts were drifting, swirling around and around and around and-

The seat in front of me was empty. I put my arms on the backrest and laid my head down.

Closed my eyes.

The thoughts were worse now, because there was no world to see. No world slowly blurring as I tried not to cry. Just thoughts. Ugly, black thoughts that blurred and bled into each other until they melted into a continuous haze.

I'd lost. They'd taken something from me. Not for the first time, or the hundredth. It wasn't even the first time they'd taken something irreplaceable. And that - the thought of Mom's flute rusting at the bottom of a landfill like so much _trash_ \- had me curling up in my seat, guilt rising up like bile.

It was their fault.

Every last one of them.

And what now? So what if Sophia was gone? Her parting shot had cost me more than anything before it. She _took Mom from me._

With a good knee, I could have made it up the hill. I could have put flowers on her grave. Without them, I could have talked to Dad. Would have talked to Dad more, instead of being a stranger in my own house.

We could have gone together. Put flowers on her grave together.

Been a family. _Together._

But no. They were going to take and take and _take_ until there was nothing left of me.

Homework. Hair. Flute.

_Leg._

I clenched my hands into fists, fighting the urge to lash out, to do _something_ , do _anything_ to let it out.

A sudden nail-point of pain and-

A drop of red fell from my hand and splatted against the bus floor. A second, third, fourth drop joined it.

No matter what else happened. No matter what. Things were going to change. It wasn't a happy thought. This was a simple fact.

They wouldn't take anything else from me.

Not because I wouldn't let them.

But because I couldn't.

I spent the rest of the bus ride watching blood ooze across the grimy floor.

The house was empty, the rooms cold and dark. Dad was still out, whether at work or elsewhere, I didn't know.

I limped in and locked the door behind me. The pain in my knee had dulled to something low and grinding, spiking when I moved too fast. My hands were throbbing, my gloves still damp in a half-dozen places where I'd bled into them.

I tugged them off and tossed them straight into the trash. They were unsalvageable. I checked my jeans as well. They were scuffed and dirty, but thankfully undamaged. The knee was almost painfully tight though. It was only as I adjusted my brace that I realized the problem.

My knee had swollen up like a grapefruit. My jeans were pulled taut around it, and the brace was digging in in places.

I needed to get some ice on it before it got any worse. I tossed my bag aside and stumped toward the stairs. I was just through the doorway when I stopped.

Ice it. I needed to put ice on the knee I'd bashed against the ice.

I groaned, but the thought still made me smile. Mom would have

 _-taylor_ -

laughed.

I adjusted my crutches to keep moving.

_-taylor-_

What was I smiling about? They'd crippled me. I couldn't get around my own home without assistance.

I grimaced, looking away from the kitchen. Something glinted at me through the dark, and I stopped. What was… it was something at the end of the hallway running parallel to the stairs. There was a small powder room underneath the steps, and the hall ran all the way to the back of the house where…

Mom's room.

I took a step back to look.

 _-doors were opening_ -

The door at the end of the hall was ajar. I'd seen the light glinting off the doorknob. But that room shouldn't be open. It just _wasn't_. Not since she'd died. Neither of us went in there anymore. It was her room. Her sanctum sanctorum. There were too many memories there.

But…

It was hers. An idea spread in my chest with sudden warmth, wiping away my anger like rain.

I turned on my heel and started down the hall. Distantly, I felt a smile cross my face, a real smile that dwarfed the one from a moment ago. I didn't have any flowers left, but that was okay, I could honor her memory in a different way.

My knee protested the effort with a jag of pain, but I ignored it. I could turn this around. Salvage something from this day.

My foot touched the floor of the hallway. I could-

_could_

_could_

_"I can do it!" I said, glaring up from behind a stack of books._

_"I know you can," Mom said. "Just humor me." She bent down and took the books out of my arms, balancing them on her hip with ease before walking down the hall toward her book room._

_"Mooom!" I stamped my foot. I was a big girl, I could have made it._

_"It's okay," Aunt Judi drawled from behind me. "You can help me out."_

_I turned, just in time for her to hand me a- a-_

_"Wow," I whispered. "What is it?"_

_Aunt Judi raised my hands with hers and then pulled. The thing in my hands split in two. It was a knife. A weird knife with a blade made of bone._

_"Judi!" Mom hissed. "Don't give her that!"_

_Aunt Judi rolled her eyes. "Taylor, you know how to handle a knife, right?"_

"Of course I do," I said. Mom had shown me.

I hesitated. When had Mom shown me anything like that? Who was Aunt Judi? Who-

I took another step.

A moth landed on the wall beside me. It looked just like the one from before. I hadn't seen where it came from, but it was here now, twitching its antennae back and forth.

Now that I looked at it, it looked familiar. More familiar than just having seen it earlier.

Familiar like something seen long ago, half-remembered.

Familiar like-

 _I kept staring. The bug had a_ pattern _on its wings. Like… like a face. It was weird looking though. Its whole body was black, and it had lots and lots of legs. More than a bug was supposed to._

_"Taylor," Mom said again. "Listen to me. This is going to be our little secret. Okay?"_

"Okay."

There was more I had to say, but as I opened my mouth, the bug took flight with a papery rustle. My knee was throbbing again, my hands burning, but the pain was distant, someone else's.

 _-the door was open_ -

The hallway was… had to be miles long. Hard to tell when it kept listing back and forth.

Or was that me? _Doesn't matter_ , I thought, the words coming with dreamlike slowness.

 _Am I dreaming?_ Was this just another dream like I'd had on the bus?

A third step. A fly buzzed around my head, and I waved it away.

A fourth. Something with a hundred, hundred legs skittered away just before I stepped on it.

A fifth, sixth, seventh step. The world was shaking, buzzing, vibrating; the hall slowly filling up with insect noise. I was humming, though when I had started I didn't know. But I was, and the sound seemed to drive away the pain, let me take the eight and ninth steps.

The door at the end of the hall was ajar, the gap hazy with flying bodies.

I took the last steps forward, ignoring the insects crawling over my skin, my wounds, my hair.

_The door was ajar._

_The door swung open._

The door closed behind me and

_It was warm, sunlight shining across the hardwood floor and turning all the books gold._

_I was standing in the center of the room, Mom kneeling in front of me, her dark hair dangling down in a way that made me want to reach out and touch it. She held the butterfly in her hand._

_"It's going to be just like with the blood. You remember that, don't you?"_

"Yeah. But that was…"

 _Last week._ A long time ago.

When had that happened?

_"Say 'ah.'"_

_"Ahhh." I stuck my tongue out, my mouth open like a baby bird._

_It was silly. Silly enough that I couldn't help giggling._

_"Be serious now," Aunt Judi scolded. But she had a little smile on too. She wasn't very good at being a grownup._

_Mom frowned. "Taylor."_

_I nodded, doing my best to shake out the rest of the giggles. It was all weird, but Mom was using her 'I mean business' voice, and that meant I had to get with it._

_"Okay," I said seriously._

_Aunt Judi leaned forward, her smile a little smaller now. "Just take your time, darling. All you need to do is-"_

Copper.

I tasted copper. Something stiff rubbed against my lips, my tongue, my teeth. _Fingers_ , my mind supplied.

My fingers were bleeding again, and the blood was hot and metallic in my mouth.

It was dripping down my hand onto the floor, spreading into the dust like rain in the desert.

The faint gray light coming through the window glinted off it.

Brightest thing in the room.

I swallowed.

Copper.

_I reached out and took the bug in my chubby hand. The bug flapped its wings slowly, its legs twitching. I caged it with my fingers, but it didn't try to fly away._

_"It's scary, but I know you can do this," Mom whispered. "It'll keep you safe."_

_The bug made a harsh chirruping noise. It was… it was kind of ugly, really. And pretty gross. But it was also a little sad. It couldn't even see. It was blind._

_And it was fuzzy._

_Sort of._

_"Taylor," Mom said. "Do you understand?"_

"Y-yes." My words came out slurred.

It was hard to talk. Hard to see. The world wouldn't stop tilting, and the insect noise was building to a crescendo. A shadow passed over the window, and the room was suddenly pitch black around me.

And the dark was full of movement. My hand

_held the bug._

_"I promise you on my name, Taylor, that it won't hurt you." Mom took my hands in hers, pressing the butterfly closer to my heart. "Trust me."_

"I do."

_"You drank before, now you have to eat. That's how it works."_

_I looked at the butterfly for a long moment. And then I looked at Mom. There were lines in her face that I'd never seen before, and she was biting her lip. Aunt Judi was still against the wall, but she was quiet, watching, waiting._

_Why was I hesitating? I'd trusted Mom with the blood, and I'd trust her with this._

I nodded my head, and the word came with certainty. "Yes."

Refusal would mean going back. Back to that life.

Back to dying slowly.

_I opened my mouth and crammed the bug in. It fluttered furiously, dry wings buzzing against my lips, but I closed my mouth around it. It had a moment to squirm before I bit down. The bug's insides, hot and sweet, spread across my tongue, and I gave a muffled cry of delight._

Something hard ( _nail_ ) shell broke under my teeth, and I bit down again, grinding it

 _to bits. The taste just got better and better, like_ (blood) _candy. A third bite pulped the bug and_

smashed its shell to pieces, little bits of ( _bone_ ) carapace sluicing through the guts. There was pain, but it was far away and barely noticeable.

_Good girl," Aunt Judi said, looking relieved._

_"Very good." Mom agreed._

I swallowed. The insect's guts were burning hot, running down my throat like fire. I could feel it go all the way down.

_Mom used her thumb to wipe away a bit of insect goo from the corner of my mouth. She popped the thumb into her mouth, closing her eyes with relish. I_

licked my hand clean. The blood had left sticky lines all down my palm and wrist, and I cleaned them slowly and methodically. The pain had stopped though, replaced with a gaping sense of loss. The wound in my hand, the gap between my index and ring fingers, was burning, aching as the air touched raw meat and exposed bone.

_"You don't know what a relief this is," Mom sighed._

I shrugged. "Why did I have to eat a bug?"

_Aunt Judi snorted. "Your mother is weird that way."_

_"Hush! It's nothing like that," Mom said dryly. She reached out suddenly and ran her fingers through my hair, working through the kinks and curls with soft motions. I leaned into the contact._

How long since Mom had done that? Not since before she-

_"It's… well, it doesn't matter," she continued. "I need you to do one more thing for me."_

"Okay."

_She nudged my chin up so she could meet my eyes. Hers were pretty, a green so bent it was almost yellow. It was one of the few things I hadn't gotten from her- I had Dad's brown eyes instead, and-_

_"Taylor, look at me." Mom's eyes were deep. I stared closer, picking out the little flecks of color. They weren't really green, were they? I'd been thinking of it wrong all along. They were yellow, and the little flecks of green only made me think otherwise, but the flecks were_ moving _now, and-_

 _"Until the time is right…_ _ **Forget.**_ "

The word unlocked something in me. I had the sudden sense of mental gears creaking into life, something there but unused, forgotten until now.

A final _door_ opening.

_"Speak your name."_

The word came to me.

I **spoke**.

And the insects covering every wall of the room boiled forward.

YEARNYEARNYEARNYEARN

This is my next, and likely last big fanfic. I'll be updating as often as I can, which is usually 1-2 times a month at most.

I'd recommend reading the original postings on Spacebattles as they come. I post there under the name 'Ziel.'

Beta credit for this chapter goes to Hellgodsrus, for knowing exactly how much suffering is enough.


	2. 1-2

1.2

Danny Hebert pulled into the driveway at quarter past 11. The house was dark, its windows unlit and not even the porch light on to brighten things up. Taylor must have forgotten. He grabbed his box of leftover takeout from lunch and climbed the stairs into the house.

He moved slowly, one fist in the small of his back, trying to work out the kinks from sitting behind a desk all day. There was a faint ache behind his eyes; on some days it might have bloomed into a stress headache, but today he'd been lucky.

He'd been distracted, not worrying about the job so much as Taylor. The insurance had covered most of the medical bills, and the school had picked up the rest when he started throwing his weight around, but it didn't change the fact that someone had broken his little girl's leg.

As much as Blackwell would blather on about slippery stairs and clumsy girls, he knew the score. Taylor had told him. She'd been vague, too vague about some things, but about others she was very clear.

_"I got in Sophia's way so she kicked me."_

What the hell was he supposed to say to that?

He flicked on the foyer lights as he entered. The door got locked behind him, and he hit the porch lights for good measure. A bright light would deter a lot more assholes than most people thought.

The rest of the house was pitch black, the front hall a lonely spot of light in the dark. He moved toward the stairs, watching his steps closely. Taylor was probably asleep by now, and he thought she had the right idea.

Flick. Foyer light off. Hall light on.

Danny stopped.

One of Taylor's crutches lay at the foot of the stairs. He bolted forward, his heart rocketing painfully into action. Had she fallen? He'd told her to make up a bed on the couch but she'd refused and-

"Taylor?" His voice vanished into the quiet. He called again. "Taylor?!"

Silence.

It was only as he approached the stairs that he saw. The second crutch lay a little further away, not on the steps but fallen at an angle on the hallway floor. Danny picked it up. There was a stain on the handgrip. A dried, red-brown stain.

"Shit!"

He dropped it. More of her things were littering the hall. A trail leading down to…

Danny stopped once more. His heart hadn't stopped racing, but the sight forced him to stillness.

The trail led to Annette's study.

Taylor's coat was just a little further down. Then her scarf. Then her hat. Her sweater lay piled against the closed door.

Danny moved. Taylor wasn't the neatest kid, but she'd never tossed things off like this. It looked like- _No. It's just her winter clothing. Nothing more._ But his mind completed the thought anyway. It looked like the trail a pair of lovers might leave, shedding clothes along the way to the bedroom.

Taylor didn't know any boys. Didn't date. And that meant - Was there someone else here? Someone alone with his crippled daughter?

He ran the rest of the way and hit the door hard enough to rattle it in its frame. It was locked. He wiggled the knob, pushing hard against the door. If it didn't open in a few seconds, he'd kick it open. He'd-

A rustle.

Danny froze, straining his ears for another noise.

There was a full minute of silence, with only the hiss of his breath for company, when the sound came again.

A soft rustling noise. And then a groan.

From… upstairs?

He hurtled down the hall, stumbled over her scarf, kicked it aside, and then ran up the steps, flicking on the upstairs light as he went.

"Taylor!"

Her door flew open hard enough to rebound off the wall. He caught it, staring into the darkness of her room. The beam of light from the hall fell across the foot of her bed, highlighting the mound of blankets covering her sleeping form.

Danny let out a breath he hadn't realized he was holding. She'd just been tired and gone to bed. It didn't explain what the mess downstairs was, but that was a problem for tomorrow.

He took a half-step into the room before stopping himself. She needed her sleep. He looked back at her, her thin body curled up beneath the covers. As he stared, she twitched, the sheets rustling.

He hoped she was having a good dream. She could use it.

With a sigh, he tiptoed to the window. There, in the plug beneath Taylor's desk, was an Alexandria nightlight. The little plastic cut-out of the heroine was yellowed by time, but he could remember buying it for her like it was yesterday. He sighed again and clicked it on.

The tiny bulb provided just enough light to see her by when he turned out the hall light.

Just enough light to see her. To know that she was still there.

"Good night, Little Owl."

He shut the door and headed for his own bedroom. Any sense of relief at seeing her alright was fading, replaced with a low, ugly sort of melancholy. His anger, so near the surface these days, flickered into life, old embers igniting under his frustration.

He brushed his teeth with the bathroom light off. The sight of himself in the mirror, a worn down, broken man growing old before his time… He didn't need that now. Not when there was so much else going on.

He hadn't been there for Taylor. Not in any sense of the word.

_"I got in Sophia's way so she kicked me."_

_"It's okay; I can get around on my crutches just fine."_

_"I've got it handled, Dad."_

_"I can do it, Dad."_

_"Don't worry about it."_

_"Don't worry-"_

_"Don't-"_

Danny turned, tossed his work shirt into the hamper in his closet, and shut the closet door. The calendar hanging on it shifted and caught his eye. He scanned the days and weeks automatically, making note of events he had penciled in, trying to focus on anything by but his thoughts.

Dentist appointment next week, meeting with the zoning commission on Thursday, negotiations with Camden shipping on Friday…

His eye fell on the present day. January 12th, and something clicked into place in his mind. Something that had been lingering on the periphery of thought all day. Something that he'd been forgetting.

The second anniversary. Two years since Annie died.

"Christ," he whispered.

No wonder Taylor had been so out of sorts.

"What a _fucking_ mess." The words sank into the silent house without a trace, and Danny felt suddenly small; suddenly very, very small and brittle.

He'd forgotten the day she died.

He sank onto the edge of his bed- his _empty_ bed, and put his head in his hands.

_Doing a real goddamn good job there, Dannyboy._

"Fuck." He whispered it, and then said it again, his breath hot and sour against his hands.

Were there any more ways he could have fucked this up? Taylor hurt – probably crippled, Annie gone, and he was… he was on the edge.

It was the kind of thought that only bubbled up during sleepless nights. During the day it was easier to push it down; pretend he was making progress in some way, scrabbling away trying to bail out a sinking ship.

In the night, it was there, cold and hard and _terrible_ in the way only truly honest thoughts could be.

Danny pressed the heels of his hands into his eyes, rubbing, trying to force the thoughts away. Taylor needed him. That was what he lived for. Keeping a roof over her head and-

_Keeping her safe?_

He shifted, dropping his elbows onto his knees so he could slump forward. Something fluttered away as he moved – a bug, a moth or something.

 _I need a fucking drink_. The thought was there suddenly – not new, but oozing up in the same way the other dark thoughts did, something ever-present seeping into focus.

He swallowed, his mouth suddenly dry. That'd be nice right about now. He could use it. Needed it, really. He really did, and it was… mitigating? Meeting a negative desire with something more acceptable. Annie would have known the name of it from her psych classes, but Annie couldn't tell him because-

He jerked open the drawer to the bedside table. His hand swept through the detritus inside as he dug to the very back. His fingers touched cool glass, and he withdrew them, bringing with a small bottle.

Just for tonight. Mitigating. Having a drink when he really wanted to open the second drawer and take a good long look at the cigar box inside that always smelled like cold steel and oil.

Just for tonight, and in the morning, things would be brighter. He needed to touch base with Taylor before he left. He had to. Had to turn things around. Do things right for once. For the first time since Annie died. Two years of fuck-ups.

Danny cracked open the bottle.

The morning was a long way away. There would be time for Taylor then.

He thought of Annette.

_The world inside the room was moving. Every single inch of landscape shifted and scurried; a desert where every grain of sand moved independently. A desert of shining black sand._

-our little secret-

_The world tilted, and I fell. The desert rushed up to meet me, and I threw out my hands to break my fall, but there was no ground._

_There was no sand. No desert. No-_

_My scream vanished over the whispering of a trillion tiny bodies._

_There was no sand. The world was insects._

_They boiled up and over me, legs and jaws tearing at my naked flesh. The tide of bugs swallowed me. They pressed in, covering me, eating me._

_I opened my mouth to scream again, and they pressed in, squirming against my lips._

-drink it. Drink it all-

_I bit down, grinding the vermin between my teeth. Hot, viscous guts squirted out, and I tasted their meat on my tongue._

\- eat my flesh-

 _Something hard shattered, and I bit down again and again. Their taste- their bodies- they were sweet. So sweet. Endlessly, they piled in, and I gorged. More and more and more and_ more _until I was welcoming it, reaching out to them, growing impatient because I couldn't get enough._

_I swallowed, my lips joyful, my throat burning as they went down, and then-_

_A door opened beneath me, the world tilting again and-_

I shot up, shoving everything away. I was in the book room and it was _moving_ and there were things _touching_ -

_no no no no no no nononono-_

The light seared my eyes; too bright to see in. They were all over me, tiny legs pricking as they skittered back and forth. And-

And-

I blinked. The world came into focus.

My room.

My room, lit with the pale gray of early morning sun. Reality asserted itself slowly, sinking in as the dream faded. It had felt so real. All those insects crawling on me, biting my flesh, had felt absolutely real.

My heart still pounding in my ears, I ran my hands across my body, checking, just to be sure.

Nothing. There were no bugs on me. Nothing was eating me.

I let out a long, slow breath. My whole body felt shaky, my hands quivering a little as the adrenaline rush petered out.

Only…

My _hand_.

The edge of my shirt was ragged where strips of cloth had been torn off and wound around my right hand like black bandages.

Who had done that? Had I?

The thought raised only more questions. How had I gotten upstairs? Last night had only been a weird dream, hadn't it? Then what was _this_?

The strips were folded under each other, holding them in place. I tugged the ends free and started unwinding. Little by little, my pale flesh appeared from under the wrappings, the palm red where I'd scraped it in the cemetery. The strip ended, and I let it fall onto the covers.

The second strip was knotted around the base of my thumb. Unlike the first, it covered only one thing. My middle finger; wrapping around it like ribbon.

I undid the knot.

Stopped.

I could see just the barest strip of skin at the base of my finger, but the rest was hidden.

 _-now you have to eat_ -

I'd… done something. Dreamt it maybe, but still done something in the dream where Mom appeared to me.

If I unwrapped the cloth, what would I see?

 _I don't want to_ , a little voice in my head said.

I didn't. But I had to, even if I had a terrible sense of foreboding about it.

Had to be certain.

Had to-

"Taylor!"

I jolted, my hands shooting under the covers without thought. Dad stood in the doorway, his hair still tousled from sleep. He crossed the room in seconds to stand at my bedside. There was an odd scent lingering around him; something sharp, almost chemical, and under that… something… burnt?

"How are you feeling?"

I looked at him, at his face, gray with fatigue, his chin stubbly. There were new lines there, lines that had only been etched since I got hurt. Whatever I was going through, he didn't need to hear about it. It would only worry him needlessly.

"I'm fine. Why?"

Dad looked at me for a long moment. "After yesterday," he said slowly. "And… your mother?"

My false smile faltered just a little, but I injected as much sincerity into my voice as I could. "I'm okay. Really."

He stayed silent, just looking at me, as though he expected another answer. When I didn't give one, he sighed, rubbing at his eyes.

"I'll uh… I guess I'll make breakfast this morning," he said. "Meant to wake up and bring it to you, but I overslept. You hungry?"

_-the desert tasted like salt-tears of joy as I gorged-_

My smile came easily this time.

"Starving."

I changed clothes quickly, throwing the old ones in a pile at the back of the closet. It was what I did with all the clothes I didn't want Dad to see. Until I knew why I'd gone to bed dressed and woke up with a bandaged hand, they were staying in the closet. I chose my largest hoodie, one long enough that I could hide my hand in the sleeve without looking odd.

My knee brace got tossed to land atop my shirt, and my old jeans got the pockets turned out before I threw them aside. Two dead beetles fell out into my waiting hand. I pulled on a clean pair of jeans and pocketed the bugs. By the time I put on two pairs of socks – it was cold out – the house smelled pleasantly like frying bacon.

I gave my hair a quick brush before I bounced down the stairs, pulling it into a loose ponytail as I went. Whatever Dad was doing in the kitchen, it was working. The smell was nearly palpable, strong enough that I could imagine it literally tugging me along like in some old cartoon.

I reached the bottom of the stairs, and sound joined scent. Grease popping and sizzling in the pan, mixing and mingling with the fresh smell of eggs cooking. All of it together gnawed at my insides, and my stomach ached with hunger; I couldn't remember the last time I'd eaten, and I'd lost a lot of time yesterday. Everything after the cemetery was a blur.

"Taylor, eggs sunny-side up or scrambled?" Dad called.

"Both!" I yelled back.

The kitchen was only a few feet away, and I walked quickly to-

I stopped.

Looked back.

My crutches were leaning against the bannister.

My knee. The brace.

The memory flickered into my mind's eye – I'd taken it off upstairs. Done it without thought.

My knee didn't hurt. I bent it experimentally, flexing my leg this way and that, probing for the familiar spike of pain.

Nothing.

The doctors had said I'd been in the brace for another eight weeks, and that was if it healed well.

Sophia had hit me four _days_ ago.

I pulled up the leg of my jeans to look. My knee had swollen badly yesterday, but today it was fine, my skin unmarred. I touched it lightly, inspecting it with my fingers. They brushed something on the back of my knee, and I twisted around awkwardly to look.

Three ticks clung to my skin. Two were miniscule; still the rusty-red color that said they hadn't fed yet. The third was a bilious yellow-green, so swollen and bloated with my blood that it looked like a behemoth beside the other two.

A wave of disgust swept through me as I looked at them, and I felt my lip curl. How long had they been there, slowly sucking me dry? _Parasites._

I hobbled down the hallway to the powder room under the stairs and shut the door. For once, I was glad my hand was bandaged. I took the fat tick between two fingers and plucked it away. My knee twinged in protest, but I took a vindictive joy in pitching the little bloodsucker into the toilet.

The other two squirmed, but I pinched them between my nails and sent them sailing in to join the first. _Plink, plunk_.

I flushed, washed my hands, and turned to leave. Oddly enough, I felt a little better. One problem down; I'd gotten rid of the ticks, though where and how I'd picked up three in _January,_ I didn't know. My hand met the doorknob and-

My knee folded under me. I fell face first into the door, my cheek smacking against wood, and barely caught myself against the sink before I hit the floor.

"Ahh, dammit!" I hissed, my face stinging from where it had struck.

_What the hell?!_

My knee was throbbing, the pain sickeningly familiar, each pulse punctuated by a sharp little jolt that seemed to travel through my whole body. I could feel the difference without my brace, like the bones themselves were already splintering under the strain, and only needed a little more to break and shatter entirely.

"What-the- _hell_?!" I pushed myself up, balancing on one leg.

The pain had… I stopped, frozen at the thought. I took the ticks off, and the pain came back. But I'd been fine until then. I'd healed, but I hadn't. I'd seen something last night, but I hadn't. My hand was wrapped, but I didn't remember doing it.

Could I… was it possible that…?

"Taylor, are you coming? How much toast do you want?"

I jumped at Dad's voice and nearly fell again, barely holding onto the doorknob with my good hand to stay up.

 _Later._ I'd figure this out after he left.

Luckily, my crutches were only a few feet from the powder room. I hopped as quietly as I could and grabbed them. Hobbling into the kitchen came with depressing ease; I was getting _used_ to the crutches.

Dad was bustling around, working the stove while feeding slices of bread into the toaster. The smell of breakfast hit me like a wall, blunting my worries I had about my knee. There was another smell though; something unfamiliar wafting through the scents.

I did my best to baby my knee as I sat down, propping the crutches against the table beside me. The pain had dulled a little, and having breakfast to concentrate on helped. I turned to watch Dad work, and that strange smell carried over again. It took me a moment to place it, the same smell I'd caught off Dad when we were upstairs.

Two scents. One sharp, somewhat sour, and another, burnt... almost sulfurous. The latter I had no idea about, but the first… I inhaled, tasting it, rolling it around on my tongue. Beneath the Dad's scent, the composite of sweat, deodorant, shampoo, aftershave… there was the sharp smell.

The toaster popped, and Dad swapped out the toast for new slices, stacking the browned bread on a plate.

It came to me suddenly, the source of that smell; a faint memory of throwing out bottles after Mom had a dinner party for her coworkers. That same sharp-sour smell lingering around those bottles, wafting out of the recycling bin…

My heart beat a little faster as I realized.

Dad had been drinking.

He'd been drinking because of me.

Breakfast was subdued. Dad seemed to have put on a cheerful face while he cooked, but it quickly faded once he sat down. He kept flinching whenever he looked at the window or whenever someone's fork hit their plate too loudly.

 _Hangover_ , I thought, the guilt wiping away the taste of my eggs.

We both made conversation, but Dad wasn't feeling it, and I was doing my best to avoid any sensitive topics. When I answered my fifth question with "I'm fine," Dad seemed to take the hint and stopped talking.

Any guilt over that, over stonewalling him yet again, was minimal. If he was drinking - if he had _been_ drinking, because now couldn't be the first time, it was my fault. Anything I told him would only make things worse. It was the same reason I'd never talked about school. I got hurt, he found out about the bullying, and the next thing I know, he'd been drinking.

 _How did I know that though_?

That was another thing. My sense of smell was _way_ out of proportion to what it should be. Just eating breakfast was almost over-stimulating, everything's taste so much _stronger_ , so much _better_ than I was used to.

Bacon had gotten even more delicious. Somehow.

Another thing to figure out. To not tell Dad about.

"Where are your glasses?" Dad said suddenly.

I blinked. Touched my face.

"I left them upstairs," I said, trying to sound bemused and not terrified. "I was a little out of it."

Dad gave a small smile at that, and started in on his coffee. I put my head down and started desperately trying to catalogue any differences. My hand was safely hidden in my pocket, and my knee was still reminding me of its presence with nasty little jabs every time I moved it. Taste and smell I'd already noticed. My vision was fine – better than fine, it was good enough that I was noticing details in the kitchen I hadn't seen since I was three. My glasses didn't provide nearly this much acuity.

It didn't help. The realization was growing more and more apparent with every revelation. _Superpowers. Were these superpowers?_ Far from being exciting, it terrified me; I had the sudden sense of alien forces manipulating my body, changing it, shifting it out of my control without my knowledge.

What else had changed?

What else had happened to me?

Dad finished his coffee and stood.

"I'll get the dishes," I said; my voice sounded distant, like someone else was speaking. Part of me was still quivering, fragile and confused, but I pushed it down. I just needed to hold out until Dad left.

"Thanks," Dad said. He checked the clock above the stove. "Hm… I better get moving."

He left the kitchen, heading upstairs to take his shower. I started clearing the table. Dad had left a couple bacon strips and eggs on his plate. I shoveled them onto my plate and finished them off before dumping the plates in the sink.

The water burbled on upstairs, and I began washing the dishes, eating toast with my bandaged hand as I worked, leaning on the counter rather than using a crutch.

There was something else. Something else inside me had changed imperceptibly. I knew there was a change, but couldn't pinpoint what or where. My senses were like the tip of an iceberg, something strange and wrong, but not massively so. The ticks, my hand, the book room, last night; those were something else, something other, just small parts of a whole. The big picture was there, waiting for me, but I couldn't see it, couldn't put the pieces together _._ The feeling of things going out of control was building slowly, snowballing into something terrible.

I finished the toast and sat down at the table. We had a little tv in the kitchen, and I flipped it on, staring blindly at the channels while I waited. The minutes oozed away, and I tried to ignore the way I could see the screen clearly for the first time in a decade.

"Alright, I'm off."

I jerked upright in the chair. Dad came back into the kitchen, dressed for work now, his hair still damp. He lingered for a moment at the counter, a sheaf of papers in his hand.

"You're going to be okay all alone, Taylor? I could call in if you need me-"

"No!" I hesitated, before saying it again more calmly. "No, really. What are you so worried about?"

He looked at me, his face pale and gray in the morning sun. I could still smell the alcohol on him, fainter now, but still there, lingering like an old memory.

"You, kiddo, I'm worried about you."

I waited ten minutes after he left before I went to the book room. The door opened without protest, and I surveyed the inside of a room I hadn't looked at in the daylight for nearly a year.

Bookshelves lined three walls, splitting on the wall ahead and to my right for windows. A desk, thick with dust, sat under the right window, and an area rug, sunfaded now, covered the floor. There were books everywhere; double-stacked onto shelves, and piled into corners like forgotten treasures.

A few cardboard boxes sat empty beside the door. Dad had meant to go through and throw things out, but had never worked up the nerve.

I'd never dreamed of it. This was Mom's room. Her things, her room.

I stepped in.

The night before was- I stopped, shaking my head. It had been daytime when I came in here yesterday. It had only been 2 in the afternoon, and…

It had been night when I came into the room. I didn't remember much, but I remembered that.

And I remembered Mom. I'd remembered Mom. It wasn't just last night, but long ago, when I was just a little girl. Something with Mom and a woman I didn't know.

And…

I held out my bandaged hand. The final strip of cloth still encircled my finger, dotted with toast crumbs now.

If I had superpowers, that was fine, but there was something more, something _wrong_ here. That wasn't how powers worked – remembering stuff that had happened – stuff that couldn't have happened, because there had been a bug and… and…

I couldn't remember.

 _-our little secret_ -

Bits and pieces were there. The room. Mom. The woman. The bug. Moonlight.

Blood.

I remembered that clearly. The taste of blood.

Without thought, I pulled the end of the bandage off my thumb. It came away easily, and I began unwinding it.

I closed my eyes as I worked, going by feel alone.

Only when I felt the cloth fall away entirely did I open them again.

My flesh ended a bare millimeter after my knuckle. A scabbed, ragged edge marked the spot where my finger had been torn away by-

By-

 _-good girl_ -

My knees hit the rug. The right screamed in protest, but it was like someone else's knee, someone else's pain.

I remembered now.

My finger. I'd bit off my own finger. Bit it off and-

Sour bile rose in my throat and I heaved, my body shaking as I tried to vomit. Nothing came. I tried to force it; the nausea was there, but I just _couldn't_. The only other option was to stick my finger down my throat, and I wasn't doing that.

My finger. I'd eaten my own fucking finger. I could still taste it, could still taste it on my tongue – sweet meat wrapped around a core of bone and marrow and-

I heaved again, trying desperately to vomit, to purge, to _get it_ _out._

No relief came. I lay there on the rug, my heart throbbing painfully, my eyes watering.

Slowly, I pushed myself up. My whole body felt slow and dumb and foreign. If I could do that, then what else could happen? What else could I do?

And _why_?

This wasn't superpowers, it was losing my mind. Listening to my dead mother command me, cannibalizing myself, my senses going haywire, my body rebelling.

All madness.

"Why?" I whispered. "Why now?"

Why Mom?

I hadn't imagined all those things; they'd happened, but I couldn't understand _why_. But why her? Because I'd failed to visit her grave? Because I was losing it!? Why couldn't my stupid mind just leave well enough alone!? She was dead, and she was never coming back, and she'd never done anything with fucking bugs!

And-

It landed on the back of my hand. The mutilated hand. The bug adjusted itself, balancing on a dozen black legs. It was… a butterfly?

It was _like_ a butterfly.

I stared closer.

But it was like a wasp too. And a grasshopper. And a fly. Strong jaws and six wings attached to a body wrapped in gray fur and shiny, spiked shell.

And it was real. I could feel its weight; feel its legs pinpricking the back of my hand.

Real.

"What the _fuck_?" I whispered. "What is this?"

The bug took flight suddenly, wheeling around the room.

"Wait!" I grabbed for it without thinking. "Come back!"

And I _felt_ it.

A pulse of something in my words. A _force_ behind them.

The bug darted through beams of sunlight and returned to my hand. I looked down at it with wide eyes.

It was real, and I'd just made it do something. I hadn't dreamt what happened. It had been real. I knew what it meant now. The dreams made sense.

I rose slowly to my knees, hunching over the bug, protecting it, keeping it from flying away.

Real. Real. _Real._

It was proof. Something was happening. Something beyond me, something abnormal. An answer to what was happening.

A laugh escaped me, suddenly and unexpectedly. The butterfly fluttered its many wings as my breath ruffled it. I held it up to my face, looking at it from only a few inches away.

I breathed the word, and something in my chest seemed to ease, just a little.

" _Real_."

 

YEARNYEARNYEARNYEARNYEARN

Roll for SAN loss, Taylor.

Beta credit goes to Hellgodsrus, without whom this chapter wouldn't have made much sense.


	3. 1-3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Damien! Damien! Damien, look at me! I'm over here! Damien, I love you. 
> 
> Look at me, Damien. It's all for you!

I hefted the cardboard box aside, setting atop a stack of three others I'd already searched. The stack wobbled for a moment before settling. I turned away and opened the only box left before me. Of the small mountain of boxes in our basement, it was the last. The pile had remained as it was for so long for a simple reason – every box in it was filled with Mom's possessions.

Dad hadn't had the heart to box up the book room; he could lock the door and forget about it. The rest of Mom's things, anything in sight, anything we would see and be reminded of her from, went in a box. Her presence had dwindled to a handful of pictures, two in my room, one on the mantle, and one in Dad's room. A few other small items remained here and there, but the rest had gone into storage.

I tugged open the cardboard flaps and caught a puff of dust straight in the face. I inhaled reflexively and started coughing, my lungs and mouth full of the dry taste of age.

The bug twitched, shifting on its perch on Dad's workbench as it sensed my distress.

"It's- fuh-fine," I wheezed, waving a hand at it. "St-hah-stay there!"

It folded its many wings and continued to stand vigil. I gave it a long, flat look, daring it to do something.

I could still feel its presence. The… connection had grown slowly over the previous day, and I'd finally noticed it when I went to bed. A little point of light in the back of my head that I could reach out and touch.

I _hated_ it. It was intrusive. Alien. Yet another thing forcing its way into my mind. And yet… It felt familiar. It was… it was like picking up an old book that I hadn't read in a long time. The first pages were unfamiliar, but by the second chapter, I would remember the words like I'd read them yesterday.

I knew how to control it. _Remembered_ how to control it. It took less than a thought to move it if we were connected. What I _desired_ , it would do. There were other things there as well. Useless, piecemeal memories. What it liked to eat – raw meat. How it disliked the rain. That it would molt again and grow another mouth in its adult form. And not one of those memories explained how to get it to go away, or how to cut away the knot in the back of my mind that sounded like cicadas screaming and tasted the wind with its skin and go back to being alone in my head.

Finally, I forced myself back to the search. A Christmas sweater nested at the top of the box, an abomination of metallic green and red so hideous that I had trouble believing it was anything but a gag gift. I tossed it away and started pawing through the rest of the box's contents.

Dad had dumped her clothes in as fast as he could, and I was left to search through the tangle. Two more sweaters, a pair of ragged jeans, two pairs of mismatched socks, and a single fingerless glove joined the first sweater on the floor.

Was there nothing else? I dug down deep, not even bothering to examine the rest of the clothes. There had to be something. This was _it_. There was nothing else to look through.

My fingers touched cardboard, and I grabbed blindly at whatever article of clothing sat at the bottom of the box, pulling it free with a frustrated groan.

A gray t-shirt unfolded in front of me. The front read simply: _Brockton U- Class of 95._

There had to be more. I glanced down into the box again. And… unless I wanted more old clothes, I was out of luck.

With a sigh, I started packing clothes back into the box. The Brockton U shirt remained in my lap until everything else was back in. Slowly, carefully, I lifted it to my face and inhaled.

I breathed deeply, searching for her scent, for any trace of the woman who'd worn it.

It tasted like dust and old clothes and musty basement.

I stuffed it under the Christmas sweater and closed the box.

If I'd done this two days ago, before I'd visited her grave, before the bugs and my finger and all the insanity, I'd have kept the shirt. I'd probably wear it as a sleeping shirt. It would be my way of remembering her, of staying close to her, and Dad would never have to see it.

Now… I couldn't believe it, couldn't reconcile the woman who'd graduated in 1995 with the same woman who opened her palm and made me drink the blood. The same woman who had kept too many secrets from her family. Who'd had powers. Who'd played with my memories and made me forget.

I threw the other boxes back into a teetering pile in the corner of the basement and left. The bug fluttered up to land on my shoulder as I climbed the stairs, and I did my best to ignore it.

One thing at a time. Mom, then the bugs.

Returning to the book room brought a brief surge of emotion, but I ignored that too. I wasn't sure what I was feeling anymore, and it was just easier not to. Feeling meant having to dissect the tangle inside me, and that burden, that strain was one I didn't need at the moment.

For all my attempts to ignore it though, one thing bled through loud and clear.

_Panic_. It throbbed through me, so strong that my resolve was ridiculous in the face of it. It was that that had my hands clenched around the grips on my crutches. A constant, escalating fear that made me want to laugh hysterically, because I was trying to figure things out, trying to hide behind the label of _superpowers_ , when I was teetering on the edge of some terrible precipice.

I didn't know what that fall would look or feel like, and I had the unpleasant feeling that I was too unlucky to actually go insane. But there would be a fall.

I leaned against Mom's desk, propping my crutches to the side. Slowly, I let my gaze sweep over the room. My search today had begun four hours ago when Dad had left for work. I'd canvassed the rest of the house, looking through everything of Mom's for a clue.

The day before, when I'd first met the bug, I'd gone through the shelves, poring over the books for something- anything that could be a lead. The drawers on Mom's desk were still ajar from where I'd pulled them out and inspected the contents. Stacks of books that I thought might have meant something were in towers about the room.

None of them, not a one had held any clue. Literary criticism, the classics, dog-eared feminist theory paperbacks, old poetry, dead white authors, books on growing bonsai and cacti and mushrooms, huge coffee table slabs about famous artists, dissertations and documents of philosophy all went onto my pile of rejects. I'd even looked for hidden compartments in books like I was in some cheesy mystery novel. By the end, I'd begun fanning the pages in every book I handled in case something fell out.

Nothing. The room was entirely devoid of any clues. Part of me wanted to look through them again to be absolutely certain, but I knew that I couldn't do it. I'd only done the book room the day before because that was all I _could do_.

Searching through her things was like gouging open old wounds; bringing up old grief at my mother's death and mixing it with new pain at her deception, at what she'd done to me. And her books were the worst. I loved reading and loved books, but Mom _was_ her books. Had been her books. I couldn't have been any more raw if I'd gone to the cemetery and dug up her grave.

I slumped against the desk, sliding down until I sank into the chair. My eyes ached. My knee throbbed, the pain coming through clearly no matter how many painkillers I took. I reached up and rubbed my eyes and-

Flinched, jerking my hand away. I glared at it. I'd used my injured hand without thinking. I could smell the sweat on my palm where the bandages had pressed too thickly. My body decoded the scent with contemptuous ease. Skin. Bone. Blood. _Meat_. I could _taste_ myself. Something electric leapt behind my navel at the smell, and I couldn't stop myself from shivering at how _wrong_ it all was.

I needed answers. Needed them now, but there was nowhere else to look. No more leads. The basement was a dead end. The small store of Mom's things in the attic was all junk. And so I was back, in a room full of books that I would never read.

My stomach rumbled, and the hot flash of anger I felt at it couldn't drown out the hunger. I glanced over at the clock. It'd been nearly four hours since I started my search, and I'd missed lunch. But how was I supposed to eat when twenty seconds ago my body had decided that _I_ smelled like the next thing on the menu? How, when I had nine fingers, and a tenth made from bandages wrapped around _nothing_ that still worked somehow?

My stomach only twinged again, protesting its emptiness.

I took a deep breath, held it for a ten count, and released it. It took three more reps before I could focus enough to make a plan.

Fine. It was lunchtime. I'd feel better if I ate. It would be reassuring to get through a meal without anything weird happening. More than anything though, I wasn't going to let this situation get the best of me. I wouldn't let whatever Mom had done to me control my life.

Feeling a tiny bit better at that, I pushed away from the desk and crutched over to the door. I paused in the doorway, looking back. There was something I was missing here. It couldn't just be a dead end. Maybe I'd think of it at lunch.

A thought hit me halfway down the hall, and I froze, staring at nothing as I processed it.

_No_.

It couldn't be that simple. How stupid did I have to be that I was looking for secret compartments in books and I'd missed this? Could it really be _that_ obvious?

I hobbled back into the book room, then over to the wall opposite the door. There were two bookshelves on this wall, both standing nearly to the ceiling, one on either side of the window. Every shelf was triple-stacked with books, every available space crammed full. The only gaps were where I'd taken things out in my search.

Getting into position took a lot of balancing, ending with me leaning mostly against the wall so I could use both hands. I set my fingers into the gap between the left shelf and the wall and pulled.

The shelf didn't move for so long that I thought it had to be nailed in place, when finally, as I strained, my hands crying out, the shelf jerked a quarter-inch forward on the floor. I shifted my hands further in, adjusted my grip and pulled again. The shelf scraped forward a little at a time, moving only when I shoved as hard as I could against it.

By the time it was far enough away for me to examine the wall, I was sweating, and I'd accidentally knocked a complete set of first edition Tolkien off the shelf. A blank stretch of dusty wall faced me, the paint two shades brighter than everything around it.

I repeated the process on the other bookshelf, this time managing to send an unabridged copy of _The Story of the Vivian Girls_ thundering to the floor. The book split apart when it fell, thousands of pages falling across the floor like an avalanche.

And I didn't care.

Because there was writing on the wall.

It was blurry, like I was looking at it without glasses from before my change. It reminded me of a Magic Eye puzzle. I could almost see it- there were bits and pieces on the edges that seemed almost legible.

Slowly, I reached out to it. The air over it was thick around my fingers, thrumming with energy. The tiny hairs on the back of my hand were standing up and my skin was tingling.

What kind of power would do this? Leave something that lasted for years, unseen- _hidden_ until I came to find it. What kind of person had Mom been, to keep this kind of secret from us?

I touched the drawing. And-

_pulse_

Something moved under my skin; a pulse, a second heartbeat, not smooth as bloodflow, but a hundred thousand movements in one. And-

The feeling died away, a static buzz ringing in my ears for just an instant as it went. It echoed faintly, not in me, but across the room, resonating with the drawing.

The writing wavered into focus.

A shape. A design. Curving lines ending with small circles or crosses. Straight lines pointing out from a thin body. The body was narrow, bits spiraling inward, curls and arches suggesting shape rather than showing it.

It was meant to be a bug. An abstract representation of a bug, sketched out in glowing yellow-green lines.

Now that I looked at it, it almost looked like… I looked over my shoulder. The bug was still sitting on the desk, its many jaws twitching as it waited. Was this where it had come from?

I pressed my hand fully against the wall. The _pulse_ ignited underneath my skin for half a breath, and then it was gone again.

_-doors were opening-_

A section of the wall opened up, swinging outward like it was on hinges. I stumbled backward, catching myself against the bookshelf to keep from falling, staring at the wall in disbelief. That was an exterior wall. There was no space for anything on it. And yet there was a space there. A little two-by-two compartment in the wall like a hidden safe.

I reached in, dragging my fingers along the walls of the compartment. The surface was continuous; the painted drywall went smoothly into the compartment and out without break or gap. It felt like the wall had just been _indented_ , like it had just accommodated this new space without complaint. There weren't any hinges either. The wall had _bent_ , but it was looked more like folded clay rather than rigid drywall. I spent a few minutes shifting around, looking at it from different angles, even leaning out the window to examine the brickwork outside.

Finally, I sighed and gave up. There weren't any immediate answers here. It was just another question on a very long list.

My attention turned to the contents. A single lonely envelope sat in the bottom of the space.

A shiver went down my spine as I read the front.

_"To Taylor"_

But it wasn't in Mom's handwriting.

I opened it slowly and pulled out the paper folded within. The paper crinkled as I unfolded it. The letterhead read " _From the Desk of Annette,_ " and a quick glance at Mom's desk confirmed that this was from the same notepad that Dad had gotten her as a stocking stuffer one Christmas. But where the stack of blank pages was dusty and sun faded, this letter looked brand new, the paper white and the creases crisp. The writing inside was untidy, the lines and letters uneven, written hurriedly.

_Taylor,_

_Do you remember?_

_Gone into hiding._

_My hunger is too much now. Not safe._

_Took your mother's things for safekeeping._

_Don't tell Danny. Took his memory also._

_5553674155_

_-Aunt Judi_

I stood there for a moment, uncomprehending. I read the letter two more times. Words leapt out at me. _Do you remember? Took his memory_ _ **also.**_ By the time I was finished, my hands were shaking, the paper crumpling where I was holding it.

Mom had played with my mind. This woman- this _Aunt Judi_ , had tampered with my memories too. How many times had this happened? Judging from what the letter said, I'd forgotten an entire family member, lost entire _years_ of my life. How was I supposed to trust any of this? Were there other family members out there that I'd been forced to forget? Had Mom even died? Was Dad my Dad? Was-

" _Dammit!_ "

I slammed my fist into the wall. The drywall shattered around it, white dust sifting to the floor, and I hit it again. It only made me angrier; I could feel the hits vibrating up my arm, through my missing finger, reminding me of its absence, of its _impossibility_.

"Dammit! Son of a _bitch!_ "

I balled up the letter and hurled it at the bug. It knocked the insect a few inches across the desk, and the bug buzzed angrily at me.

"Where the fuck did you even come from?!" I shouted at it.

It didn't answer.

"Get out!"

I didn't just scream at it this time, I reached out and took control of it, hating its alien presence in my mind, hating it for being there, hating it for _being_.

The bug shot into the air and out the doorway. I felt it spiral down the hall and up the stairs before I broke the connection. The awareness of it remained – wouldn't go away - but I didn't have to look at the stupid thing anymore.

I stomped across the drifts of fallen pages from _The Vivian Girls_ and picked up the letter.

There was a phone number. Aunt Judi had _courteously_ included her phone number.

Our landline sat on a little table to the side of the front hall. I bypassed it and went to the cordless in the kitchen. It took me three tries to dial the numbers; my hands were shaking so badly.

The phone didn't ring. It gave a sharp, electronic chime, and a recorded voice came through from the other end.

_"We're sorry, but the number you are calling is out of service or has been disconnected. Please hang up and-"_

I ended the call, and then dialed again.

_"We're sorry, but-"_

I slammed the phone into its cradle. Glared at it, huffing angrily, my jaw tight.

I lifted it and dialed again, a different number.

Dad picked up on the second ring.

"Hello?"

"Dad. Do I have an Aunt Judi?"

"Who? What? Is everything okay, Taylor?" Dad sounded confused, his voice rising a little as he talked.

" _Yes!_ I-" I stopped myself. Took a deep breath. Started again. "Yeah. Everything's fine. I- uh… I was just going through Mom's stuff and found a letter from an Aunt Judi. I thought maybe…"

"Oh." Dad was silent. "No. I was an only child, and your mother was as well, you don't have an aunt. What were these letters you found?"

"Just weird, old stuff from years ago. I wanted to get in touch with her about some things." I paused for a second, thinking. "Were any of Mom's friends named Judi?"

"Not that I know of," Dad said, still sounding confused at the whole conversation. "You've met most of her friends over the years. She had a couple of college friends she stayed in touch with that I don't think you knew, but most of them have moved away by now and I don't know their contact information. Is _everything_ okay, Taylor? You sound upset. Is your knee bothering you?"

"It's fine, Dad. I- I gotta go. I don't want to take up all your time."

I could hear him exhale raggedly into the phone. "Taylor, you need to tell me when- you can tell me when things aren't okay. I mean it."

"I know. Everything really is okay here. I'm going to just hang out after this, I'm a little tired."

He sighed again. "Don't push yourself."

"Bye, Dad."

I hung up, dropped the phone back into the cradle, and sighed again. What had I expected? The letter said they'd gotten to him too. I just… I wasn't going to take anything this sketchy at face value.

My anger was slowly bleeding away, replaced with a hollow sort of resignation. Lying to Dad left a sour taste in my mouth. He really _was_ trying now. It wasn't like before when he'd… he'd been mourning. It wasn't his fault he didn't know. He was as much a victim here as me. But I was still keeping him out. And until I had an actual answer to give him, it was better to leave him out of it.

"Crap," I whispered, pressing my forehead against the wall.

It was just like school all over again. And he'd exploded when he found out about that. He'd exploded and still hadn't been able to do anything. Emma and everyone else had gotten off scot-free. They'd piled everything onto Sophia. She'd be in trouble if she ever came back to school – and I didn't think she would. Breaking my knee seemed like her idea of a going away gift.

Dad couldn't know.

It wasn't a happy resolution or even a good one, but it was enough.

YEARNYEARNYEARNYEARNYEARN

As it turned out, lunchtime was going to be more difficult than I expected.

When my anger had finally abated enough for me to think, I'd gone away from the phone and started tugging open cupboards. I was hungry, there were no more leads, and I was too _tired_ to be angry right now. All my rage at what they'd done to me had nowhere to go. I felt burnt out, worn thin.

What food we had was… not good. Unless I wanted a flour and ketchup sandwich on moldy rye, I was out of luck. My injury had been enough of a distraction that we hadn't gone grocery shopping this week. Dad had made the last of the edible food at breakfast, and I'd finished it off after he left.

I was going to have to go to the store.

Walking was out of the question. Half the houses in the neighborhood hadn't cleared their sidewalks or even put down salt, and the closest store was a gas station nearly ten blocks away. The cemetery was still too fresh in my mind to risk that trek.

I bundled up, gathered my crutches under me, and started off to the bus stop at the end of the block. I made it halfway there before I realized that I had no way of actually carrying the food that I bought. And I'd forgotten my money.

By the time I made it back with an empty backpack and cash raided from our grocery fund, I'd missed the bus and had to wait for the next one in twenty minutes.

I passed the time staring at the surroundings. The bus stop was just across from a wooded area, and all the trees were black, skeletal shapes against the snow. Their branches were all dusted with white, the contrast sharp and crisp against the gray winter sky. Looking into the mosaic of limbs they made was a good distraction for a little while. I made a game of it, tracing line to line to line, or trying to make a picture out of the shapes like I was cloud-watching.

There was only so long I could stare at nature though, and the point where I started noticing how cold it was was about the same point I became very aware of the bug's presence.

I could still feel it, even though I was a good five-hundred meters from my house. It was still there, and I was aware of it enough that I could point to it if I wanted to.

Questions raced through my mind, and I leaned forward on the bus stop bench to look back at my house. Was this permanent? Were we joined together forever? What if it died? Where had it even come from in the first place? Could I-

I nudged it with my mind. The bug twitched, and I could feel it resettle itself wherever it was perched.

A man coming to sit down at the bus stop gave me a long look as I groaned and put my head in my hands.

The search through Mom's things had distracted me for a while, but the reality of it was finally setting in.

I had powers.

I had _had_ powers, even as a kid.

Mom had had powers.

I'd fantasized about getting superpowers – everyone did. But I didn't think it worked that way. Powers didn't just… go away and come back years later, did they? And for all the thoughts of what I'd do with superpowers, now that I had them…

Now what?

I didn't have an answer when the bus came a few moments later. When I boarded, I took a window seat at the back. Even when the bus pulled away, I felt the link to the bug stretch and stretch and _stretch_. In spite of my revulsion toward the bug, I couldn't stop myself playing with our connection as the bus cruised down snowy streets. It… it helped, a little. Some progress in a day that had been nothing but dead ends so far.

As we crossed the Lincoln Street overpass, nearly a mile away now, I made the bug do a loop in the air as easily as I might draw a circle with one of my hands.

It chirped happily and- _happily?_

I'd been getting feelings from it all day, but I was finally paying attention. What it felt wasn't 'happy' as I understood it. The bug's feelings were primitive, barely more than bursts of imagery and desire.

_A hundred million other bugs, buzzing and crawling over a landscape of rotting flesh_. Hive. A sense of unity. It _liked_ being connected with me.

I went deeper. Maybe there was a clue here. Something the bug had seen. Maybe even a way to close the connection and be alone in my head again.

The next flash was more abstract, the emotions and feelings too insectile, too strange to translate to well into human terms. Any words I could put to it were rough, only barely comparable.

_q̢̦̗͇u҉̤̱e̬̰e̥̣͎̘̼ń͙̩̘͔͈͓ò̺͓͓̺̦f̨w̸̭į͍n͉̭̺̜d͎͇s̶k̹̹y̧̫̬s̩͍̗͙̹̤͇i͓͚̭̞͉͙͘l̺̙͟ͅk͡s̗̝͕̭̝̲͠k͈̰̫͉̮͉͎i̝̠͍͉͖̞͔n͕̭̣͇ͅh͓̱̥̹͉́i̟͖v͏̙e͔̪̦͎ḿ̙͇͎͉̰o̞͔̬̠̲̹͠ţ̠̻͇h̖͉̘̳̬̘͞e͞r͈͓͞b͏̭̭̥͍̝r̨̫̱̣͕̞͚͉o͇o̞̝d̦͎̺̩͉̫_

But I understood that the bug meant _me_.

It liked me.

I shivered. The bug's mind was still there even when I had total control over its body. It was aware of what I was doing with it, and… it was _content_ with that, happy to be a passenger in its own body. I shivered again, suddenly feeling crowded, claustrophobic in my own skin. The desperate need to be alone struck home stronger than ever.

I reached out, groping along our connection, trying to communicate what I wanted.

_Get out_.

I pushed deeper and deeper, my mind overtaking the bug's. The little sphere of its consciousness was shoved away, tiny compared to my mind. Our connection was blurring, the balance shifting, my mind pouring into spaces that had previously been only the bug's.

A flash-

_w̧̺į̫̠͕̭̖͍ͅng̪̯͈̟̯̫̫̀s͚͚͉͙s̰p̪r̜͙͚e͈̰͕͕̺̜̗a̼̝̝d̨̖w̧̺i̩̙ḑ̮̣̯e̲̮̼͇̣̖͎a̡̗͔͈͇̣͎̠n̹̦͝d̲̟̟͚͠w͏͈̙͙̱̞a̫i̶͍͇͖̱̺̣ͅt̝͎̣͇̪͕̻̀i͇͚̱͈̘͠ǹ̠̥g̮̘a̸̫̣̹l̮̖͇̣͟o̯̮͙̗͉̘n̦̼̩̤e̪͍͞n͚o̜̯h̟͇̺̦͕̭̪̕i̜͈̳͔͈̳̕v̪̺͘e̶̜̘̭̰͚͎n̦̹o̴q̰̮͓͙͕̹̗u͎e̥͙̯ͅe̮͜nno̪̹̠͡e̠͉̫̘y͔̩̣es͎͙̗̹̬w͏̻̯͉̻͖o̷͓̱̙̟̦̩̤r̤͠l̲͔̠̟͎d̘̖͔͈̮̺͖͠o̗͓̙f̸̪w̺̖͝i͖n̗̟̹͓͔ͅd͘w̺̯̹͎o̵r͈̲̯̞̭͕l̯͓̭̫͍͜ͅd̸̤̜̩͓͇͙͇w͙̭̲͉̜̪͇i̗̮͘t̪̗̠̰͙h̨̯͕̮̮͎̥̞o̫̝̯̰u̮̰̟̝̼̤͉t̘e̛͓͕̫̜̙̹͙ṉ̭͖̼̯d̨͙̤̜w̢̱͉̦̳̗̥o͉̺̬̣̩͎ͅr̢͉̻̞̠̰ͅl̥͘d͝w̙̻̣̬̫̭͢i̠̰̭͙̤̜t̪̪̦̰̣̬͟h̷͖̞̤͙̰o̴̗̬̝̮u̖̠̬t̩̩͈̀_

Terrible, crushing fear. It didn't want to be alone. The bug fell over on one side, its legs twitching, its teeth gnashing with a sound like glass shards grinding together. I pushed again, uncaring, and-

Something else came back over the connection.

_s̹̟͖̕c͔̤̱̣e͚͈͜ń̹̥̜̻͓̭͓ṱ͚̣̦t̫̳͍̻͚̀a̵̼̮ͅṣ̰̘͎̻̲ͅt̩͉͍͉̠͓̻í̳̥n̤g͖̤͉͎̣̥͖i̲̹̰̬͎̞̕ͅt͈̗̺͓̞̘͈o̫͔͎n҉̖̰͍͖̘̬th̢͕̫̥̤̥̰e̺̪͎̝a̤͉͇i̶̭̭͇̣̘ͅr̯a̸̪̖ņ̳͕̯d̤̻̰̗̺͚̤͞s̮ͅk͇̯͖̱̮͢ͅy͔͍̹̺̝̳a͘n̶͙d̛̝̹͚̞̭̗̲s͚͇k̦̫͈͍̭̜i̘̺ṉi͇̦̜͘t̯̙_

Not memory or feeling, but the bug's _senses_.

I jerked back in my seat, the bus suddenly blurring into streaks of color around me. The connection snapped back, my mind rebounding away from the bug's.

"Ah!" I slapped my hands against my eyes, trying to massage away the pain. There was an awful taste in my mouth, and I had no water and no place to spit. It was like the bug could taste _everything_ , and I couldn't make it _stop_ now that I was back in my own head. I could taste _everything._

The bus was like a sauna, the smells suddenly so thick that I couldn't believe they weren't palpable. The people on the bus were foul. Not just reeking of sweat and body odor, but of stale clothes and rock salt and hair spray and blood and jeans dried stiff with piss and worn anyway and and and-

And-

I shot up, my crutches clanging against the seat in front of me.

"Stop! Stop the bus!" I shouted hoarsely, hobbling up the aisle to the driver.

The man turned to me. "I can't just stop-" And then he saw my face. "Off! Now!"

The bus rolled to a stop just in time for me to dry-heave into a snowdrift. No vomit came, but I kept retching uncontrollably. My head was throbbing, my throat raw, and I couldn't _stop_.

_Diesel exhaust, winter air, road salt, snow, melting snow, running water, sewer water, sewer runoff, dead leaves, rotting leaves, dead raccoon rotting in the leaves, human scent, dog scent, dog piss, sea salt-_

I heaved again and again, but there was no relief. I coughed up nothing but bile, spitting it onto the side of the road and trying to clear the taste from my mouth. I stayed there, bent over with only the crutches keeping me up, until slowly, my senses bled back to normal, the world fading to something I could handle.

I straightened up, wiping my mouth, grateful for the small mercy that I'd put my hair up today. Back at the house, the bug righted itself, its whole body quivering. We were still connected as strongly as ever, and I hadn't learned anything useful from pushing the issue. I was pretty sure the bug was in fact, _blind_ , and made up for it with its sense of smell and-

My memories twitched, a scene floating to the top. A bug seen through my eyes, held in my chubby little girl hands. _I'll see for you, I promise!_ And the bug responded with a happy trill.

Wonderful. Why couldn't I remember anything useful?

I sighed and turned back to the road.

The bus had driven off. I caught a faint glimpse of it way off in the distance, just before it turned a corner and went out of sight. _Bastard_.

The street I was on I didn't recognize, but I had an idea of where I was. There was a corner store close by that I could stop at. It was a little too close to a rough section of the Docks for me to shop there often, but I had before, and I remembered them having a great little deli counter. The proximity to ABB territory also meant that we were close to the areas of Brockton that held most of the Asian immigrant community. Shopping there before had netted me some fantastic Korean barbecue and a recipe for a spicy noodle dish from a woman manning the counter.

Thoughts of what was waiting for me kept me warm as I crutched toward the store, and thinking of the meat helped me ignore the lingering traces of _bus_ in my mouth.

I crested a rise in the street and the store came into sight, only a handful of blocks away now. I started down the slope, sliding a little in the slush, but using my crutches for support. It was actually easier to lean back on them and let the layer of ice under the snow carry me downward. I'd never been skiing, and this was barely more than a slow drift, but I couldn't hide my small smile by the time I reached the road at the bottom. For once, I was grateful for the crosswalk, and didn't have any trouble with the drivers. I stepped onto the sidewalk and paused, leaning on my crutches to catch my breath.

I had to be miles away from home now, but the connection was still there, the bug still close enough that I felt like I could reach out and touch it.

I huffed out a cloud of white smoke and started walking again.

A small park was all that stood between me and the store now. It was only a few hundred feet wide, and opened onto a street lined with small stores. The corner mart was just down the block on the opposite side of the road. I took my time getting there. The crutches were digging into my armpits by now, and the harder I pushed, the more they ached.

A towering cathedral butted up against the line of storefronts, and I had to make my way around the small groups of homeless hanging out around the church steps. They were all bundled up against the cold, holding trashbags full of their possessions between their knees as they sat. A few held out their hands or gestured plaintively at signs written on cardboard, and one of them cried "Spare something, darling?"

I kept going. It couldn't be easy, being homeless in the winter, and Brockton's shelters were probably terrible, but I didn't have any money to give away.

It was a relief to finally step through the doors into the corner mart. The air inside was warm, scented with the smell of fresh meat and spices.

I grabbed a hand basket and made my way over to the deli counter. It was manned by a girl closer to my age than the older woman I remembered, and we actually had a nice, if brief conversation about what I planned to cook. It ended when she asked about how my husband liked my cooking. I stared at her awkwardly for a long moment; she blushed, saying it was a joke, and we both sort of drifted away, not looking at each other.

I kicked myself for it all the way through the store. It had been a while since I had a friendly conversation with someone, but that didn't mean I had to turn into a slack-jawed idiot when someone talked to me. It was like buying into all the bad things Emma said about me.

Shopping for the rest of my ingredients only made me feel more and more awkward; I had to hold my basket with one hand while sort of hooking the crutch on that side to my body with my elbow, and walking turned into more of a controlled stumble as I tried to manage the errant crutch. Finally, I just gave up and set it against a shelf. I had to rush through each aisle, hoping no one would steal it, come back and crutch to the next aisle, and repeat.

The young man behind the front counter didn't look at me when I approached. There was a little tv sitting at the end of the counter that seemed to demand all his attention. A news channel was barely visible through a haze of static, and the anchor's voice was a tinny wail jumping in and out.

" _-llisburg burns as Crawler continues his push- -rantined territory. The Triumvirate was on- -with many other volunteer- -and villains, but they have- -little success in quelling the-_ "

The sound dropped out entirely after that, and the clerk started smacking the top of the tv with a practiced hand. I started stacking my items on the counter. I was halfway through my basket before the clerk turned away from the tv and starting ringing me up.

"Cheap Canadian crap," he muttered, jerking his chin at the tv. The tv took that cue to fuzz back in, the picture mockingly clear now.

" _Armsmaster joined the frontline late last week, and wasn't available for comment. Now, Jerry,"_ the anchor said, " _Do we think that Armsmaster's absence contributed in any way to Vista's-? She- -funeral on Tuesday- -had to be-"_ The picture stayed clear, but the sound died off in a static hiss.

The clerk cursed under this breath at it, but started taking the cans I pulled out of the basket. He scanned each item quickly, prices tallying up on the register. I winced as I saw them. The final cost came to just barely outside what I had scrounged out of our grocery fund at home. Slowly, my face burning, not looking at the clerk, I nudged aside two bags of frozen vegetables.

"Put those back, please."

Everything remaining got paid for and went into my backpack. By the time I limped out the door again, I was exhausted physically and emotionally. It was time to go home and not do anything else for the rest of the day. No bugs. No drama. No nothing.

There was a bus stop just down the block. I turned to go and-

Someone put a hand out in front of me.

I looked up.

A man was standing just outside the exit, close enough that he'd been hidden behind the door when I came out. Even at a glance, I could tell he was homeless. One of the homeless I'd glimpsed on the church stairs. Rail-thin, the six layers of clothing he wore made him look lumpy and ungainly. A pale, scabbed face poked out from under the hood of a mud-splattered marshmallow coat.

I could smell him. Not just stale body odor and old alcohol, but something fainter, something burnt. Like he'd come out of a fire long ago and still carried the smell of char with him.

The man dropped his hand with a jerky, uneven motion, like his arm didn't want to cooperate.

"You," he croaked. "It's… you."

The words took a second to sink in, the whole situation moving with a dreamlike slowness as I tried to work past my surprise. I was about to get mugged.

"You, you, _you_." The man took a step forward. "Will you… touch me?"

I took a step back, and the world seemed to snap into focus, my heart suddenly pounding into action. _Run_. _Turn and run back into the store_.

But the man took a step forward, looming over me. Mad, hollowed junkie's eyes stared down from under the shadow of his hood, his lips working into a vacant grin. A fly landed on his cheek. I lashed out without thinking, without knowing I could - catching the fly with my power. And-

It was like the Magic Eye on the book room wall. Something _shifted,_ with the fly as the focal point. The pulse rose under my skin, my whole body buzzing, and I _saw_ him, saw _through_ him, _tasted_ him. Flavors and scents I couldn't name blurred through me, and only what had happened with the bug earlier let me ignore them. There was a symbol inside him, burned inside his chest like a brand. It didn't form any shapes or designs, only a nest of tangled, gently curving lines like bent wire.

My back hit the door, but I was still looking at him, staring at that symbol. It didn't look like the drawing on the wall, but I knew they were the same somehow.

"Will you touch me?" he whispered again. "Will you bless me with your touch?"

I jerked my eyes away from the sign. Panic reasserted itself.

"Get away!" I shouted.

The man froze. He stared at me, his eyes jittering in their sockets. "Will you?" he said slowly.

I jammed one crutch into my armpit and balanced against it. The other I lifted in both hands like a club. It was cheap, flimsy wood, but if this guy tried anything, I was going to swing for the fences.

He looked at me for a long moment, his fingers twitching at his sides. And then he spoke again. "I'm all ate up inside. Nothing left."

The man raised one arm and pulled back his sleeve. The inside of his arm was a ruined, raw mess of scabs. Track marks. Bruised, scarred veins ran out like a roadmap along his skin. And… they ran deep. I saw it in the same way I could the symbol inside him. Those scarred veins ran to his heart, twisting and tangling around the symbol like vines.

"I'm all ate up," he repeated. "I gave it all to them and they put it in me. Put the poison in me. M-marked me."

I swallowed, my mouth dry. "Get away from me." I didn't care about what he was saying. My voice rose to a shout. "Get the _fuck_ away from me!"

The man took a step back. He still had his hand out, reaching for me. "Bless me. You gotta bless me. Take the poison away. Keep me away from them. G-gotta touch me."

Someone pushed open the other store door. The cashier leaned out, his face hard. "The fuck you doing here?" He stepped out, fists raised. "I've warned you, shithead!"

The homeless man took a couple more steps back, his feet at the edge of the sidewalk now. He looked between me and the clerk, a terrible desperation in his face. I still had the crutch in my hand, and I was sure the man was going to run at me even with the clerk here.

"L-look at me," the man whimpered, his face screwing up with anguish. "I'll do it for you. I'll do it for you if you'll bless me. I'll do it all. I'll-"

The clerk started forward. "Had it up to here with you fucking crazies."

The homeless man turned. I saw what happened next in slow motion.

He looked, and I followed his gaze. We both saw the dump truck barreling down the street, its bed full of sand. He looked back at me, the red sign still burning in his chest.

"I do it all for you!" he shrieked.

And then he hurled himself into the road, spreading his arms wide in welcome.

The truck struck him, its horn blaring, but not loud enough to drown out the sharp crack of metal smashing bone. The truck swerved, and I lost sight of the man beneath its wheels. The horn roared out twice more, the truck careening, jerking back and forth on the road. It scraped the sides of a dozen parked cars before veering across the road and jumping the curb into the park. The truck turned sharply, utterly out of control, and keeled, the wheels on one side leaving the ground. The sound when it hit the ground was like thunder.

A wave of sand poured out across the grass, and the truck's horn wailed on and on.

The clerk stood beside me, both of us motionless.

"F-fuck," he whispered.

Slowly, I walked forward to the edge of the road.

The homeless man had left a smear of red forty feet long down the road. He was a rumpled, broken heap against the wheel of one of the cars the truck had hit. I was just close enough to see his leg jerk once, twice, three times, before going still.

Close enough to see the sign inside him fade.

Close enough to see the insect push itself out of his chest and flutter toward me.

It landed on my palm, its iridescent wings shining in the sun.

The truck's horn slowly died out, the sound replaced by sirens rising in the distance.

The new insect's star grew in my mind, and there were others now, more; hundreds blooming by the second.

I stood there on the sidewalk and stared at the dead man, my mind full of stars.

I wasn't hungry anymore.


End file.
